The World Health Organisation have updated their diagnostic manual to remove transgender identities from the category of ‘mental health disorder’.
In a move passed by the World Health Assembly last week, the peak international health body hopes to “liberate” trans and non-binary people around the world. The change is also expected to help trans and non-binary folk more readily seek legal transition in the WHO’s 194 member states.
“The World Health Organisation’s removed of ‘gender identity disorder’ from its diagnostic manual will have a liberating effect on transgender people worldwide,” Human Rights Watch’s LGBT rights director Graeme Reid said of the change.
“Governments should swiftly reform national medical systems and laws that require this now officially outdated diagnosis.”
Reid acknowledged that while people coming to understand their gender identity can struggle with their mental health, the systemic oppression of non-conforming identities can have an adverse affect in itself.
“Transgender people are fighting stigma and discrimination that can be traced in part to medical systems that have historically diagnosed expressions of gender non-conformity as mental pathology,” Reid continued.
“But it’s the stigma, discrimination, and bullying – and not anything inherent in gender non-conformity – that can inflict mental health problems in transgender people.”
International intersex groups have welcomed the move, but spoke out against the organisation for continuing to define intersex bodies as “disorders of sex development.”
“We express our deepest regret that the ICD-11 reverses this trend in relation to people born with variations of sex characteristics – intersex people,” a joint statement of 65 international intersex groups reads.
“This will cause continuing harm to people born with variations of sex characteristics.”
OIP Staff
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